Tuesday, August 16, 2016

John McLaughlin Trio in Hamburg, Part II

Last year I unearthed a VHS tape of John McLaughlin Trio in Hamburg, 1990, which I digitized and posted here, alas, the second half of the concert was missing

I'm glad to say that the second half, lasting for more than half an hour, and featuring the electric Jozy (even though played acoustically), was found on another tape of mine which I'm posting now. Aside form Jozy, there's an animated, highly exciting Indo-bop sort of scat, which is rather excellent.

Richard Cook and Brian Morton on this band:

"[McLaughlin] is punching out rows of notes which are almost as impressive for their accuracy as for their power. The themes are no longer as obviously visionary and Eastern-influenced and the guitarist seem content to re-run many of stylistic devices he had adopted from the days with Miles Davis through the ringing harmonies of Shakti and back out into a more obviously jazz-grounded idiom."

McLaughlin on acoustic guitar is accompanied by Dominique Di Piazza on electric bass and the Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu.

This indo-bop sort of scat thing is a traditional thing that indian tabla players do. These are a bunch of syllables each presenting a note on the tablas. The player adds this syllables which are always grouped together in certain ways in a a way that he can remember them. Then after the scatting they usually go to play the exact same rhythm and notes on the tabla.For example here is a video where the great Chatur Lal is doing this. He does it from 08:48 on (of course the whole piece is worth a listen).